Life Before Roe v. Wade

[Karmadillo]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/31049/

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court voted by a margin of 7-2 that a woman had a constiutional right to an abortion. On the 23rd anniversary of that decision, the Senate Judiciary Committee is contemplating the nomination of Samuel Alito, a man who is on record opposing abortion rights. Here are the brief stories of three people who helped provide abortion before 1973. They are members of Voices of Choice, a multi-media project with two dozen physicians and social activists who helped provide safe,illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade was decided. Their voices are a reminder that outlawing abortion doesn't make it go away; it just makes it less safe.

Mildred Hanson, M.D.

A featured speaker at several congressional briefings on abortion, Hanson spent 30 years as the medical director of what was then Planned Parenthood of Minnesota and South Dakota. Today, she oversees her own Minnesota clinic, where, at the age of 82, she provides abortions to women from Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

"In 1935, when I was 11 years old, my mother left our Wisconsin house on a bitter February night and dashed to the farm next door to help an ailing woman who'd had an illegal abortion. Our neighbor was writhing in pain so severe that she was having convulsions and was chewing her lip raw. It took her two days to die of blood poisoning. She left six children behind - and left me with firsthand knowledge of the injustice of illegal abortion.

"Fresh out of medical school in 1959, I developed a reputation for being the only doctor in this region who would treat women with bleeding, lacerations, and other complications stemming from back-alley procedures. Illegal abortionists would refer their clients to me in the event of complications. In addition to helping these patients, I offered legal abortions to women within the hospital system, which sanctioned the procedure if it was deemed medically necessary. I coached these women on how to get approval. 'Tell hospital officials you are destitute,' I said. 'Tell them you are devastated and will commit suicide if you can't terminate this pregnancy.' If Roe v. Wade were overturned today and if medical exceptions were still allowed, I would tell my patients the same things all over again. For the first time in my life, I would also perform illegal abortions. I didn't do so before Roe v. Wade because I was a divorced mother with four children to support. But today I have nothing to lose and believe reproductive rights are so important that I'm willing to risk whatever legal action or prison time I might face."

more...

[acmejack]

1. Incredibly powerful piece!

K & R.

[CTyankee]

2. Too few people know about this

Here at DU I have read the most incredible statements about how overturning Roe would simply cause temporary or "transient" inconvenience to women seeking an abortion. This insensitivity is outrageous. WOMEN LOST THEIR LIVES WHEN ABORTION WAS ILLEGAL AND THEY WILL AGAIN. This argument that overturning Roe will only affect a few states is overly optimistic, perhaps delusional. Don't people understand that the RW has already anticipated that and is making plans to take care of that situation through various laws to block women from going from an antichoice state to a prochoice state to get an abortion? They are not stupid but they are cruel and zealous. Women who seek abortions will be punished anywhere and everywhere.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

5. I was personally fairly "blase'"

about the possibility of abortion rights being state controlled until I read that Ohio wants to make it a crime to transport a woman out of state to have an abortion. (if I understand the posts about the proposed state bill) That is very, very frightening.

[Iris]

18. Jesus. Are we going to start having checkpoints at the state lines?

I read recently that New York passed a law, barely, just before Roe that said it was ok for a citizen of another state to have an abortion in New York.

[babylonsister]

3. How soon people forget what overturning R v. W. could really

amount to. Why are we potentially repeating history instead of progressing?
Very scary.

[annabanana]

10. Yup.. there will still be abortions...

(maybe more)
and they will be more lethal...

The fundy answer to this is that those girls DESERVE to die horrible painful deaths for
1) having sex
2) trying not to have the baby

There is an iconic picture (that I have, but will not post now) that helped turn the tide towards the "safe, legal & rare" option.

[juliana24]

4. Nobody isgoing to take our right to choose away!!!!

[Tesha]

7. You know, we used to say stuff like that about our right to vote.

They didn't exactly take the right to vote away, they just
don't need to actually count the votes any more.

They'll do the same thing with abortion: you'll still have
the right to get one, there just won't be anyplace closer
than Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal where you can exercise
your rights.

Tesha

[babylonsister]

12. And what do you base this opinion on? nt

[TahitiNut]

14. That's why SCOTUS nominees are so candid about ther support of Roe v. Wade

After all, if there were an intention to overturn it, they'd surely be secretive about it, right? Their candid and honest respect for Roe v. Wade is every bit as forthcoming as their agreement with Brown v. Board of Education, right?

Riiight. :eyes: :eyes:

(Listening to the sound of the turnip truck driving away.)

[ourbluenation]

16. Yes - through the back door they will with increasing limits and

restrictions. I've said it 1000 times - due to the rightie state gov't of Mississippi, there is only 1 abortion clinic in the entire state. Many of those poor women who can't afford to make the journey to another state, go home for the mandatory waiting period, then go back again for the procedure...really have no choice at all. They are forced into a pregnancy they don't want, or must seek out an illegal abortion. Not much of a "choice" huh?

Y'all need to wake up. Roe v Wade is pretty much useless in many red states since the SCOTUS ruled on Casey vs Planned Parenthood. It was a HUGE win for the anti-choice wingnuts. Huge.

Google "the last abortion clinic" for an excellant program produced by Frontline on PBS.

[Hekate]

25. Sweetie, it's already unavailable in most counties in the country

Exercising a woman's right to choose is fraught with massive obstacles for rural and small-town women -- doctors and clinics have been driven away by murderous fanatics, prayer chains, and public harassment. Going off for a day in the city is a big deal when (1) you have to arrange transportation, (2) you have to arrange child care, (3) and everybody knows your business, or assumes they have a right to. A farm woman or store clerk can't reasonably tell people she's "going shopping" in the city when everyone already knows her financial situation makes that claim absurd.

It only takes one or two generations of it being outlawed for people to forget it was ever legal, safe, and available. Midwives in colonial America used to give women who asked for them medicines to "regulate the menses" or "bring on the menses" -- in other words, early abortions, before "quickening" was felt in the womb. I'm not saying it was always reliable or safe, only that it was not driven underground. Some even advertised in the newspaper -- gotta keep those menses regular.

But when the medical profession became something you went to college to train for (as opposed to apprenticeship), and only men were allowed to go, and midwives were outlawed or suppressed, well, abortion became illegal and dangerous as well. Abortionists could go to prison for murder (of the fetus) if they were caught. Wingnuts would love to bring back the good old days, because Sex Must Have Consequences.

I recommend signing up for the Planned Parenthood action list. It's very informative.

Hekate

[Pachamama]

27. Wanna bet?

:eyes:

[Arkansas Granny]

6. When I was in my teens, which was before Roe v. Wade, it was

common knowledge in my rural community that one of the "granny women" who lived there would perform abortions. She had no medical experience, lived in a shack without indoor plumbing and the entire family was basically illiterate and considered to be of below average intelligence (I went to grade school with 2 of the children who dropped out of school at age 16 and they were in the third grade at the time). This is NOT what we want to return to, but with so many restrictions placed on legal abortions right now, this may be what some women may be forced to resort to. Women will die if this happens.

I don't think Roe v. Wade will be overturned, the RW needs this talking point to keep their base in line. I do think that so many restrictions will be enacted that it won't matter whether or not the actual procedure is legal or not.

[cap]

23. it's already happening in Mississippi

there is only one abortion clinic left in the state.

[mzteris]

8. Not only that aspect

which is horrifying enough -

How do they expect to care for, feed, clothe, educate, and employ the thousands and thousands of children that will be born to those already below the poverty line? (Especially as they are eviscerating "Welfare", social security, medicare/medicaid, and education?)

[annabanana]

9. Oh there will be plenty of opportunities for them

in the Army

[mzteris]

11. Oh yeah - fodder,

I forgot. Silly me.

:banghead:

[sinkingfeeling]

15. What? Care about living, already born children? That's not on the agenda!

[underpants]

13. Um 33rd anniversary

73+23=96

73+33=106 as in 2006

[eridani]

17. And don't forget how miscarrying women were treated then

What happened is that the med team stood around watching until they could prove that the fetus was expelled. If you bled to death in the meantime, tough shit.

[Iris]

19. So, how long will it take for enough fathers to be left to care for small

children ALONE before the tide starts to turn back our way?

[NMMNG]

20. The "culture of life" fundies are all too willing to return us to the days

of coat hangers, knitting needles, lye douches, poisonings, and needless deaths in their insane quest to control women. :mad:

[upi402]

21. We are going backward

and smashing down on that vertical pedal on the right.

The rest of the world, western and SE Asian, thinks we're backward, lazy, stupid idiots.
(translation mine) ; )

[EFerrari]

22. I'm old enough to remember how we managed before Roe.

It was as traumatic as possible. Women in CA at least had to tell their doctors that they had no money, no recollection and no sanity. We all knew we had to lie well or help each other lie well. There was widespread institutional lying about abortion. And this among people whose esteem for human life could not be more complete.

I know what to do if we have to go back to those dangerous days. And I hope our daughters and granddaughters NEVER have to be put through that double trauma.

[KT2000]

24. that is the "why" of Roe v Wade

women really were dying from unsafe abortions. That is where the debate centered and that is where we have to get it back to - abortions will always be with us - is it the business of the state to assure they are unsafe and life threatening?

The current abortion debate is nothing more than philosphical masturbation that makes people feel righteous if they "disapprove."

[Pachamama]

26. I found out recently that my Mother almost died from a Pre-Roe v. Wade

abortion....All these years, my mother had never told me, but then on a recent conversation about the Alito nomination that she brought it up re. the issue of Roe v. Wade.

She told me that in 1972 while she and my father were in the early process of separating and divorcing, that she discovered she was 2 months pregnant. Since there was no question that she was leaving my father and divorcing, there was no way she was going to have a 4th child and be a single parent. She had a friend take her to "someone who performed abortions". I don't remember the specific details medically that she described happened, but the net net of it was that she almost died. What is bizarre is that I actually recall when this happened. Her telling me this story jogged my memory at age 5 of her being ill and lots of bleeding...

I share this story because it was a wake-up call to me that I could have been orphaned along with my siblings at age 5 and my kids not having a grandmother! The concerns of pre-Roe v. Wade days is very very real my friends....we absolutely cannot go back!